BEACH BOOKS …

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Low­land, which fol­lows the lives of Cal­cutta’s Mitra brothers; Nine Inches, Tom Per­rotta’s col­lec­tion of sub­ur­bia-skew­er­ing sto­ries; and The Asy­lum, Si­mon Doo­nan’s ri­otous es­says about the idio­syn­cra­sies of the fash­ion world. More sober­ing are Lev­els of Life, Ju­lian Barnes’s el­egy on grief, and Jes­myn Ward’s Men We Reaped, a mem­oir of loss in ru­ral Mis­sis­sippi. Fin­ish up with Sa­man­tha Shan­non’s es­capist read, The Bone Sea­son, about a clair­voy­ant’s strange un­der­world.